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The Ngoni and the Livingstonia Mission: Early Interaction 1878-90

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The Ngoni and the Livingstonia Mission: Early Interaction 1878-90 CHAPTER 1WO THE NGONI AND THE LIVINGSTONIA MISSION: EARLY INTERACTION 1878-90 The first direct contacts between M'mbelwa's Ngoni and the Livingstonia mission took place in September 1878, when, during an expedition to explore possible sites for future mission stations, Robert Laws, the acting leader of the mission, accompanied by William Koyi, James Stewart C.E., Fred Zarakuti and forty-five porters, reached the village of Chiputula Nhlane/ at that time situated in the area between Choma mountain and Bwabwa hill, a few miles east of modern Ekwendeni.2 Though Laws had earlier come into contact with both Chikuse's Ngoni much further south, and breakaway Tonga-Ngoni elements on the lakeshore near Mankhambira's/ it is this meeting with Chiputula which initiated permanent contact between the northern Ngoni and the Livingstonia mission. In the twelve years between this contact and the baptism of the first Ngoni converts to Christianity in April 1890, relations between the Ngoni and the mission were often strained. The missionary attitude to the Ngoni, at least in theory, was fairly clear. Laws, addressing the Livingstonia Committee during his first furlough home to Scotland in 1884, 'considered that the Angoni were the dominant race, and that the great object of the Mission should be to win them' .4 The Ngoni attitude towards the mission, on the other hand, was much less clear-cut. The reasons for this were several: the first was uncertainty about the precise nature of what the missionaries had to offer (due in large measure to the way in which the gospel was frrst presented); the second was the volatile inter-tribal situation in the area around uNgoni during this period; the third was internal divisions among the Ngoni themselves. 1 Robert Laws, 'Journey along part of the western side of lake Nyassa in 1878' in PRGS, Vol.I, 1879, 305 & 315. 2 See James Stewart's map in PRGS, Vol.II, July 1880, at p.464; reproduced in Jack Thompson {Ed.), From Nyassa to Tangtmyika: the journal of James Stewart CE in Central Africa 1876-1879, Blantyre, Malawi, 1989, at p.94. 3 Robert Laws, diary for 1878, Laws' Papers, Edinburgh university library [EUL]; and W.P. Livingstone, Laws, 121 & 130. 4 Minutes of the Livingstonia committee, 2 May 1884, NLS 7912. EARLY INTERACTION 1878-90 31 Earliest Contacts Laws' visit to uNgoni in September 1878 had several important con­ sequences. The frrst was the forging of an alliance between the Nhlane clan and the mission which, in spite of difficulties, survived well into the present century. The second was the opening of communications with M'mbelwa5 which led to personal contact within the next few months. The third was the choice of a site for an experimental mission station at Mount Kaning'ina, just beyond the eastern edge of what was then indisputably Ngoni territory. Early in December 1878 Laws and Koyi arrived back in the area accompanied t-y the agriculturalist Alexander Riddel, and while Koyi went on to make contact with the Ngoni, the two Europeans began the erection of the frrst temporary dwellings at Kaning' ina Gust east of the modem town of Mzuzu).6 While Laws returned to Bandawe on the lakeshore (also opened as an experimental station at this time) and then to what was then the mission headquarters at Cape Maclear at the southern end of the lake, Koyi and Riddel settled on the eastern edge of uNgoni. In the few weeks after the occupation of Kaning'ina two events occurred which foreshadowed the events of the next few years. The frrst was a message from Mtwalo, half-brother of M'mbelwa, and a powerful chief in his own right, that news of the settlement of the missionaries had been concealed from him, but that he was nevertheless willing to receive their message.7 The attempt to conceal the missionary presence from Mtwalo (if such it was) could not have hoped to succeed, except in the very short term. Nevertheless it suggests tensions within the Ngoni state which were to remain throughout the period under consideration in this chapter. The most likely explanation is that the Nhlane brothers (Chisevi, Njomani and Magoda) whose powerful following had recently been weakened by the Tonga rebellion, were hoping to establish some sort of exclusive alliance with the mission as a means of re-asserting their own importance. They at least succeeded in at frrst convincing the missionaries that Chiputula was a more important chief than M'mbelwa.8 The second important event to occur shortly after the establishment of Kaning'ina was a summons from M'mbelwa on 15 December, saying that he wanted to hear why the missionaries had come. It was the missionary 5 For a note on the spelling of M'mbelwa, see ch.l, endnote I. 6 Laws to Rev. Thomas Main, 16 December 1878, NLS 7876. 7 Kaning'ina journal, 13 December 1878, NLS 7910. 8 Laws, 'Journey ... 1878', 315. 'Chiputula' was the title of the leader of the Nhlane clan. The old Chiputula had died around 1875, and the title had been assumed by Chisevi, probably his half-brother. (See Kaning'ina journal, 29 December 1878, NLS 7910) .
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